WikiLeaks: Saudis Offered $10 Billion to Free Mubarak

WikiLeaks, the free information group made famous with the leaking of hundreds of thousands of US diplomatic cables, has made public thousands of documents from the government of Saudi Arabia.

The Associated Press reports that the issues discussed in the documents are varied and wide ranging. For example, cables in Sudan discuss Iranian military aid while those in Switzerland are about trying to figure out how to pay limousine bills in the millions of dollars that Saudi princes and princess have accrued.

The group has published 60,000 documents already and claims that it has hundreds of thousands more to release. The Saudi government has threatened its citizens who may try to read or share the documents and said the documents were fake.

While the cables discuss a myriad of topics, one of the common themes appears to be keeping track of Iranian activities and thinking of ways that Iran could be weakened both diplomatically and domestically. One cable suggested making it easy for Iranian dissidents to share pictures of torture on social media outlets.

One of the most troublesome memos suggests that the Saudis offered to pay $10 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood to free Hosni Mubarak, the dictator the Brotherhood replaced after coming to power in Egypt's first democratic elections. A handwritten note at the top of the document says the offer is not a good idea and would be impossible to carry out.

Interestingly, the AP notes that in 2012, a senior member of the Muslim Brotherhood had claimed the Saudis were willing to pay billions to free Mubarak from prison. The document found in the WikiLeaks archives makes this claim seem more believable, despite the fact that the Saudis adamantly denied making any such offer at the time.